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Staring into the Abyss

I must say that The Seasoning House is an incredibly upsetting film. The entire time I watched it, I felt the knots in my stomach grow ever tighter. A few times I contemplated turning it off but to do so would be wrong of me, I think. I have to catch a glimpse of the horrors that is the sex trafficking industry and the hellish torments innocent girls and women must face. This damnable practice is still all-too common in the world today, hidden from the eyes of your average citizen, myself included. Seeing the stark brutality of this underground world was like having a bucket of ice water thrown in my face.

Angel is a deaf, mute girl who is stolen from her family and made to look after the other girls who are forced into prostitution. She cleans them, applies their make-up, and shoots them up before a client arrives. One day, a girl is brought in who befriends Angel, and the two become close. Up until this point, Angel has kept her head down and simply did what she had to to survive, but getting close to one of the women changes her, and one day she watches secretly as her friend is brutally raped. So violent is the deed that it breaks her pelvis, leaving the poor girl in agony. The same man comes back and rapes her again, this time killing her in the process. Angel kills him violently, and so begins her mission of vengeance, stealthily murdering those who destroyed her life.

What really shocked me was the rape scene. It is extremely graphic with nothing hidden, so to speak. The violent act is just there, a brute fact and testament to the savagery that women who are forced into prostitution must face. Watching Angel take him and the others out with whatever she can is highly satisfying to say the least, but in the end it is just a movie. There are thousands of women out there suffering a fate very similar to the one which befell those in the film, but no rescue comes for them. They continue to suffer, hidden from our eyes in the dark, seedy corners of the world. If this movie showed me anything it is how naive I and others have been when it comes to the inexcusable suffering of the countless girls and women anguishing in these secret bordellos.

The movie is dark, depressing, but very important. Anyone who considers him or herself a feminist must watch this film. You have to see the stark reality of the underground world of sex trafficking and the misery it brings. I don’t have a simple answer to the questions it poses to the viewer and perhaps neither will you, but you can at least view it as an educational experience: the more people who know that this is going on and fight to stop it, the better.